VI
EVENING IN THE LODGE
I: Evening in the Lodge
II: Adventures of My Uncle

VII
THE END OF THE BEAR DANCE

VIII
THE MAIDENS' FEAST

IX
MORE LEGENDS
I: A Legend of Devil's Lake
II: Manitoshaw's Hunting

X
INDIAN LIFE AND ADVENTURE
I: Life in the Woods
II: A Winter Camp
III: Wild Harvests
IV: A Meeting on the Plains
V: An Adventurous Journey

XI
THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER

XII
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CIVILIZATION

I. EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS

I. Hadakah, "The Pitiful Last"

WHAT boy would not be an Indian for a while when he thinks of the freest
life in the world? This life was mine. Every day there was a real hunt.
There was real game. Occasionally there was a medicine dance away off in
the woods where no one could disturb us, in which the boys impersonated
their elders, Brave Bull, Standing Elk, High Hawk, Medicine Bear, and
the rest. They painted and imitated their fathers and grandfathers to
the minutest detail, and accurately too, because they had seen the real
thing all their lives.

We were not only good mimics but we were close students of nature. We
studied the habits of animals just as you study your books. We watched
the men of our people and represented them in our play; then learned to
emulate them in our lives.

No people have a better use of their five senses than the children of
the wilderness. We could smell as well as hear and see. We could feel
and taste as well as we could see and hear. Nowhere has the memory been
more fully developed than in the wild life, and I can still see wherein
I owe much to my early training.

Of course I myself do not remember when I first saw the day, but my
brothers have often recalled the event with much mirth; for it was a
custom of the Sioux that when a boy was born his brother must plunge
into the water, or roll in the snow naked if it was winter time; and if
he was not big enough to do either of these himself, water was thrown
on him. If the new born had a sister, she must be immersed. The idea
was that a warrior had come to camp, and the other children must display
some act of hardihood.

I was so unfortunate as to be the youngest of five children who, soon
after I was born, were left motherless. I had to bear the humiliating
name "Hakadah," meaning "the pitiful last," until I should earn a more
dignified and appropriate name. I was regarded as little more than a
plaything by the rest of the children.

My mother, who was known as the handsomest woman of all the Spirit Lake
and Leaf Dweller Sioux, was dangerously ill, and one of the medicine men
who attended her said: "Another medicine man has come into existence,
but the mother must die. Therefore let him bear the name 'Mysterious
Medicine.'" But one of the bystanders hastily interfered, saying that an
uncle of the child already bore that name, so, for the time, I was only
"Hakadah."

My beautiful mother, sometimes called the "Demi Goddess" of the Sioux,
who tradition says had every feature of a Caucasian descent with the
exception of her luxuriant black hair and deep black eyes, held me
tightly to her bosom upon her death bed, while she whispered a few words
to her mother in law. She said: "I give you this boy for your own. I
cannot trust my own mother with him; she will neglect him and he will
surely die."

The woman to whom these words were spoken was below the average in
stature, remarkably active for her age (she was then fully sixty), and
possessed of as much goodness as intelligence... Continue reading book >>